Every effort is made to make sure this comparison is accurate, relevant and up-to-date. If you feel it's incorrect, feel free to discuss what below. It may just be that you do not understand some feature.

Feature

Classic Shell’s Start Menu

Windows 7 Start Menu

Windows 8/8.1 Start Screen

StartIsBack/+/++

Stardock Start8/Start10

Windows 10 Start

Supported operating system

Windows 7/8/8.1/Vista

Windows 7

Windows 8/8.1

Windows 8+

Windows 8+

Windows 10

Cost

Free

Free (Integrated)

Free (Integrated)

$.2.99+ more for additional licenses

$.4.99+ more for additional licenses

Free (Integrated)

All Programs Style

Windows 9x/2000,XP style, Windows 7 style

Windows 7 style

Screen full of items with no hierarchy

Windows 7 style, XP style

Windows 7 style

Windows 7 style

Access folder contents with submenus

Yes

Yes

-

Yes

Yes

-

Number of items that can be shown without scrolling

Few in Windows 7 style, many in XP style multiple columns

Few

Fewer than XP multi columns, but more than Windows 7

Few in Windows 7 style, many in XP style multiple columns

Few

Few

A-Z list is free of clutter (Uninstall, ReadMe, Help etc)

Yes

Yes

No, All apps view is cluttered with hardly ever used shortcuts

Yes

Yes

Yes

Tweaks for All Programs list

Open automatically, Focus on All Programs automatically, Hide Metro apps, Show folders first, Jump to app by typing first letter

Nice comparison and Classic Shell excels. One thing I like with SiB is that it can keep only Apps on the Start Screen, removing all the clutter. Is that possible with CS?

No that is not possible for the Apps view with Classic Shell as of now. But on Windows 8.1, the automatic pinning of desktop shortcuts to the Start screen Tiles view is gone anyway so you can keep only Metro apps pinned there. Better still, use the Start Menu to launch Modern apps. You can add an "Apps" item to the right column in Windows 7 style also from the Customize Start Menu tab in Settings.

Great comparison here. Tried them all but one thing that keeps me away from ClassicShell, such a small thing, but with the Windows 7 skin, the right panel with Control Panel etc doesn't look right, not enough width spacing compared to Windows 7 and SiB.

Great comparison here. Tried them all but one thing that keeps me away from ClassicShell, such a small thing, but with the Windows 7 skin, the right panel with Control Panel etc doesn't look right, not enough width spacing compared to Windows 7 and SiB.

The spacing is less because it can support a far greater number of items (system folders and important locations) in the right column, much more than the Windows 7 menu ever did.

But you can adjust the spacing yourself by simply modifying the skin and re-saving it. The parameters you might need to modify are Main2_text_padding and Main2_padding. The 4 values of each parameters are the number of pixels added around the element from the left/top/right/bottom of the menu.

Copy the Windows Aero.skin7 file to the Desktop, open it in Resource Hacker. Change the 'top' or 'bottom' (2nd and 4th) values of the above parameters and save the changes. Rename the skin and copy it back to C:\Program Files\Classic Shell\Skins and then switch to the modded skin from the Skin tab in Start Menu settings.

As GauravK said, it is very simple to do this modification with the Resource Hacker utility, and I encourage you to try it. However I have attached a ready-made skin that makes buttons bigger, more like Windows 7 if you like. Screenshot :

Not sure it is exactly the same size as on Windows 7 though, I don't have a mean of comparison here. Enjoy!

Attachments:

File comment: Skin that enlarges the buttons in the right column.Windows 8 me.skin7 [162 KiB]
Downloaded 4380 times

1. Live Tiles with push notifications (like the Windows 8 Start screen). Tiles are colorful and graphical, tile sizes can be variable, some of them large, some of them small.

2. Overall, more space for pinning your items. (like the Windows 8 Start screen). It's not without tradeoffs though. The big compromise is all those super-important system folders with submenus have no place. The idea comes from mobile OSes like Android which tuck away all apps inside an App Drawer while you pin apps to the launcher's home screen which you use across multiple pages.

3. Pinned items can be organized into groups (like the Start screen). Again the compromise is that it took the place of important folders whose contents you needed to access easily and frequently.

4. In the All Programs list which is often long and requires you to vertically scroll, you now have the ability to jump to an app which is way up or down in the list without scrolling all the way. You can just click or tap on the A,B,C...Z letters. But then again if you had a physical keyboard, you could do that already. This feature comes straight from Windows Phone. You can do this with Classic Start Menu too if you tap the touch keyboard on the taskbar and tap a letter on it.

5. A handy "Recently installed" feature.

6. Apps can be uninstalled from the menu by right clicking. (The Windows 8 Start screen had this feature too). Most mobile app launchers also have it.

7. The Windows 10 menu can search EXE names to return shortcuts and do approximate string matching. Windows 8.1 also had this feature to type the EXE name and have the shortcut shown.

In Windows 10, I do like the tiles appearing to the right of the Start Menu. I have tried Stardock10 and they offer three choices -- Windows 7, Windows 7 (with Windows 10 styling), and Windows 10 (with tiles).

I would like to have Windows 7 menus AND the Windows 10 tiles.

From the detailed comparison chart above, it appears that configuration is not available from anyone.....is that correct?

Last edited by mikemcking on Wed Aug 05, 2015 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It appears so, however it is possible that one of the above has updated since its been reviewed, or there is another product on the market. If you happen to find either to be the case, We would appreciate an update

Hi all, I'm new here, have been through windows 8.1 and 10 without feeling the need for any classic start so far, but now i have tried it out a bit, it looks rock solidand i must say it has much more functionalities that i thought it would, and it has an incorporated search kinda like the one that was supplied in windows 7, which is actually the only thing i was missing in 10. Because without cortana(it is not compatible with my regional settings and i do not want microsoft to own my stuff) windows 10 search box is so slow, and clumsy, it hardly works for me . I don't know if cortana would make the experience any better.

But now i have a dilemma, windows 10 has the best and most versatile styled start interface ever, and with the most shitty searchbox. On the other hand, classic shell has the best search box with the older windowsish interfaces ( that even with it's vast costumization can not match the speed at which i can access all my usual stuff in windows 10 start).

Gaurav had this to say about Windows 10 interface: "The only improvement I see in the Windows 10 menu is being able to pin items in the right side area and organize them into groups."But this is not just some random feature, it is the best thing ever in my humble opinion. you can cover your entire screen with easily visible and accessible icons organized the way you want, kinda like another desktop, but much better, on the press of a single button.

Not telling the autor that he must do this or that, just wanted to voice my opinion about something that i believe is not possible but should be, which is having the new windows 10 start menu, with the practical cs search box.

Yes I agree it's a nice improvement. It's like having an organized folder/desktop inside the Start Menu, and because it takes advantage of the screen horizontally and has grouping, it makes it easier to pin and access the stuff you need quickly. It's not perfect - for example, the Windows 10 Start Menu pin area has poor keyboard usability and no features to sort by name, only manual rearranging, but overall it gives a lot more space for pinning compared to earlier menu incarnations.

In the future, if Ivo agrees it's an improvement, he can certainly extend the current menu styles to incorporate pinning items to the main menu in an expanded area.

PS: Especially the Virtual Folders/ Categories where we can organize the HUGE BUNCH of Programs via Specific Categories, without actually disturbing the underlying Windows info. Just a layer/ netting on top.

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